Pussy Riot’s Punk Protesters Get Two Years in Prison for ‘Hooliganism’

Pussy Riot members (from left to right) Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova show the court's verdict from within a glass-walled cage in a Moscow courtroom Friday. Photo: AFP/GettyImages

Three women from punk feminist group Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in prison for their church protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were found guilty of “hooliganism” motivated by religious hatred in a Moscow court Friday. They were arrested after a video surfaced online of a group of masked feminists performing an anti-Putin song in the city’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. Judge Marina Syrova said the women, who were accused of being part of the church protest, had offended Russian Orthodox believers with their actions.

“The girls’ actions were sacrilegious, blasphemous and broke the church’s rules,” Syrova said in court, according to Reuters.

A day of action for Pussy Riot members, who have received messages of support from everyone from Madonna to Yoko Ono, moved into full force Friday as protesters calling for the women’s release took to the streets in cities from Chicago to London. Amnesty International, which has been calling for the women’s release, is organizing an action to send balaclavas — the colorful masks favored by Pussy Riot members — to Putin.

“The protest and global upheaval today has shown that the fight is not over. The fight for Pussy Riot, the fight for freedom of expression, for basic human rights – those are going to live on,” Amnesty International spokesman Alex Edwards said in an interview with Wired. “Even though these three women were sentenced to two years in prison today – possibly at risk of sexual and physical abuse – they will not be silenced. Pussy Riot will continue to sing their chorus of freedom aloud.”

True to that mantra, Pussy Riot actually released a new song via The Guardian on Friday called “Putin Lights Up the Fires” (listen below). And in a statement released just before the verdict, Tolokonnikova said the case against Pussy Riot could “give life to a political movement” in Russia.

“A single case of repression and persecution against those who had the courage to Speak in an authoritarian country has shaken the world: its activists, punks, pop stars, and government members, its comedians and ecologists, its feminists and its masculinists, its Islamic theologians, and those Christians who are praying for Pussy Riot,” she wrote. “The personal has become political.”

Tolokonnikova, Alekhina and Samutsevich smiled from behind the glass of their cell in the Russian courtroom as their verdict was read. Following the verdict, supporters cried “shame” outside the courthouse, where one-time chess champion Garry Kasparov was one of many taken into custody by police.

Protests continued worldwide long after the verdict was read Friday afternoon in Moscow. The @Eng_Pussy_Riot Twitter feed, which has been covering the trial, said Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, spoke after the sentence came down.

“[The] only thing that can save our daughter, my wife and all of us, is a revolution,” he said, according to @Eng_Pussy_Riot. “So that’s what we’ll have.”